I am NOT just an occasional user of Picture It. I use it a LOT. I also bought the original Picture It when it first came out. Picture It is what hooked me on computers. Although I have many other software programs, I found that I was using Picture It 99 almost exclusively.

The only reason I don't use it as much now is that I recently upgraded to Picture It 2000 and most recently to Picture It Publishing Platinum Edition. Read my review on Picture-It Publishing-Platinum Edition 2001. I liked the templates on Picture It & Picture It 99 so much that I kept them on my computer even though it was a little difficult to do so. To save earlier editions of Picture It after you upgrade, you have to get creative-rename them & put them into different folders. Microsoft wants you just to override them.

What I Use It For:

Some of the things I use Picture It 99 for on my photos are: cropping, resizing, touch-up, fixing red eyes, removing blemishes or scratches, correcting tint & adjusting brightness & contrast. I often use the rotate, flip & change text( change wording, typeface, colors, shapes & other effects) features on just about every photo project I do. There are even more advanced techniques like doing cutouts & using transparency & softening edges, changing lighting & matching tinting that you will use after you master the basics.

I use the projects to: create album pages from templates (wedding, baby, family, general, sports, seasonal, vacation & kids themes are all available), collages from templates, make greeting cards (different folds), do yearly or monthly calendars, make invitations & create certificates, flyers and business cards. Mostly, though I use it to mat & frame my photos. Some of the cuter features are: personalized stickers, sports trading cards, magazine covers, surface rubbings, kids ID's and head swaps. You can also e-mail your photos & photo creations & make postcards or send slide shows. All versions of Picture It have some of the most visually appealing templates of all the programs I own. They are very easy to use & if you don't like what they offer, you can make up your own. That's why I recommend Picture It to parents and amateur photographers.

The more creative you are, the more you find this program can do. The more you work with the program, the more you find you can do with it, too. Soon you will be making your own templates. There's a whole lot of more features that are too many to go into here but you get the idea that this program is quite versatile.

Organization:

You can organize your pictures using catalogues to group your work. If you use descriptions you can track, retrieve and manage them more easily. I use dates, occasions and naming subjects to help me locate my photos. You can add or delete picture at will. Consider installing Microsoft Media Manager to help you although I did not do this.

Printing:

Picture It is also great for printing out your photos and making multiple reprints. The final results you achieve also depend a great deal on the quality of your printer. Most newer models are cheaper & produce clear, bright results. If you have an old printer, this is the time to upgrade. Picture It 99 is not perfect by any means. Sure there are lots of other graphic programs out there that allow you to do more with your photographs but they are also so complicated with all their features that there is a lengthy learning curve. It can be very time consuming & frustrating to learn all the nuances of these programs. Using some of these high end programs would discourage the average photographer just starting out.
When I buy a software program I want to be able to use it right away. I don't want a huge manual I have to wade through to get started. I use several programs & I don't want to have to consult manuals to navigate through them each time I switch from software to software. I've learned to stick mostly now with Microsoft's Picture It.

General Advice:

My advice is to basically use one company's program, get to know it inside & out & use it to it's fullest potential. Upgrade it when new ones are available. Switching between programs is frustrating since the formats may not be compatible. Too much variety is not necessarily better -just more confusing. I do still use a lot of clips art from other companies, I have to admit but not as much as I used to do.

Picture It 2000:

When the new Picture It 2000 came out, I was annoyed that they changed the format of the graphic file. Saving it in this new file means that only people using Picture It 2000 can view it. You would have to convert it to a jpeg or other more commonly used file to send it by e-mail to someone who doesn't use Picture It 2000 or uses any earlier version of Picture It. All versions of Picture It have this same deficiency. Picture It 2000 graphic file is not compatible with Picture It or Picture It 99 graphic files. You have to convert the files to say jpeg or other more commonly supported file to go between the programs using the same photo or between other programs.

Saving File Formats:

Also, another disadvantage is that any Picture It file is a big file & takes a long time to download, upload & to print. But kept in that file, the quality of the photo on the monitor or printed out is much better than for example jpeg. Also, it is not flattened in the Picture It format & you can rework or change anything layered onto it. Once you put it into jpeg or one of the many other file formats you can save to in Picture It you cannot change any of the layers,including text, matting, framing etc. Keeping your files in Picture It format is a very handy feature since sometimes you don't notice error 'til after you are finished with your project. You can always save it in another format also to send it on to others or use in other programs. This is what I do.

Picture It Publishing-Platinum Edition vs. Picture It '99

If you want to have some fun with your photographs without getting too heavily involved with learning how to navigate through complicated options, or having to study a huge manual before you start, then Picture It is a great all around program for you. Get any version on sale & you have a steal. The graphic Gallery is so extensive in Publishing Platinum edition that I just might finally take Picture 99 of my computer. Happy Shutter bugging!!


Recommended: Yes